


You Still Owe Me

by does_that_scare_you



Series: Bittersweet Memories [3]
Category: Tenet (2020)
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, M/M, Not Happy, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Rough Kissing, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:02:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26340847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/does_that_scare_you/pseuds/does_that_scare_you
Summary: He was promised a story. But it is nothing as he had expected it to be.
Relationships: Neil/The Protagonist (Tenet)
Series: Bittersweet Memories [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1718287
Comments: 5
Kudos: 34





	You Still Owe Me

**Author's Note:**

> I am not very good at this time-structuring thing. I hope you enjoy it anyways.

Neil orders his drink. Vodka Tonic. Just like the first time they've met. Or the last time. But what was the difference anyways? Neil calls the bartender by name. Toni. He knows the name somehow too, though he has never been to this pub before.

Toni with the fading heart tattoo. _Jolie_ , was the name forever cut into his skin, a high school sweetheart. They had gotten married on a drunk, messy night and stayed together for half a month, but Toni doesn't regret having her name on him.

Toni notices him starring on it and tells the story out loud. Crazy.

He asks him for a Coca Cola. Neil still doesn't look at him as he silently speaks along, word for word.

As Toni leaves for the bar, Neil finally says:

"Do you know where we are?"

He doesn't answer, blinks and stays silent.

"Do you know why we are here?"

"I'm not sure."

"Guess then."

He blinks again and says at first an obvious fact. "

We have been here before. On this day at this time."

"Correct, but why?"

Toni comes back with their drinks. There is a little umbrella in his Coca Cola. Green with little yellow spirals. He fishes it out of the glass and twirls it in-between his fingers.

"You told me that I recruited you. Where?"

Neil smiles. "You got it."

"How did I come here?"

"Well, how did you come here today?"

Neil's car was outside of the pub. He saw it everywhere, in parking lots, outside of club, behind churches, in Mumbai, in Taiwan, in Rome, here. The black BMW is following him. And finally he saw Neil right across the street, with that smitten smile he learned to miss. He had to be with him.

"I followed you."

"Same thing you did back then."

"But I didn't know you."

"But I did know you."

"How?" Neil smiled again, in a way that showed that he was not willing to answer.

He nodded and fold his tiny umbrella together, placing it beside the glass.

"You know, I just remembered something."

"Oh?", Neil said between two sips.

"You still owe me."

"And what?"

"Your story. You said if we make it out alive, you would tell me everything."

Neil almost chocked on his drink from laughing.

"My story? I just said it out of motivation reasons. There is nothing much to tell."

"I don't believe you."

"That is pretty offensive."

"It's offensive that you know far more about me that I about you. So get started."

"Alright, boss, alright." Neil coughed, trying to catch his breath. "Ask me something and I'll answer you."

"How old are you?"

"That is your first question? What do you think, that I am some sort of vampire?"

"It would explain a lot."

"Son of a...thirty-two."

"And what do you actually do for a living?"

"Making weird friendships", Neil winks. "I studied physics and medicine though."

"Let me guess, Oxford?"

"Cambridge, do your research."

"I just imagine young Neil strutting around the campus with his little trolley and fancy silk scarfs."

"Shut up and go ahead."

"Okay, okay. Special family conditions?"

"You mean something like losing both parents at young age and being adopted by a master of martial arts? Or rather something having an abusive father and a junkie-prostitute-mother?"

Neil makes a dramatical pause.

"My father died last year of a brain tumour and my mother lives with three cats and a dog in a little cottage in Cornwall, you should meet her some day, she makes great stews."

"That's it?"

"What did you expect?" "A story that would explain", he gestures wildly at Neil, "you."

"You want me to explain myself? There is nothing to explain, I breath oxygen just as yourself, I need water to survive, I sleep, even though not much, I am able to eat everything. Well, that's not entirely true, I am allergic to strawberries."

"Oh, what a monstrosity. I get how that can screw somebody up", he says dryly, but with a hint of smile.

And Neil laughs again, but this time throwing his head back and exposing a row of flawless, white teeth.

All he is left to do is to stare at him, eyes wandering up and down the softness of his neck. The desire in his heart hurts on a physical level. Even that seems painfully familiar to him, but this wasn't the first place he had felt it. Maybe it was Mumbai, or Oslo, or even Thailand but up to that point the feeling had become so strong that he was sure to die in pain as he saw Neil leave with group blue.

"Now you tell me", present Neil demands, thumbing over his teary eyes, "are you still Kat Saitor's guardian angel?"

His eyes left Neil's face. He didn't want to talk about Kat. Not here, not now, never even.

"She knows what to do if she feels that she is in danger."

"Which is calling you."

"I come before the danger leaves its hiding spot. She doesn't know about my presence or of the risk's itselves."

"I have asked you that before, but don't you find it tiring to be the fire alarm over the people's head? Visible but never noticed even though having such big importance?"

"If you know what I'm going to answer, why are you asking me then?"

It sounds way harsher and colder than he pretended it to be, but his words hit too close to home. Neil licks his lips.

"I've heard every word", he leans a little forward, voice low, quiet, "that you have said today in that context and in that order before. You already know that this not the first time we are sitting here, today. But what if I tell you that it isn't the second one either? You and me, we are both stuck in this-in this...loop, I don't know what else to call it. But whenever it starts again, only one of us will forget the other."

"Why does it always have to be me?"

"I don't know, trust me, if I did, I would try to stop it."

He shakes his head in disbelieve.

"Do-don't think too much about it, okay?", Neil sighs lowering his gaze. "Just know that it kills me every time you forget me. Your memory, your words, that is my solace, the only thing I have until you meet me for the first time. I-I need that."

Silence. He feels Neil's breath on his face. Hot. Searing hot. He is too close. Too close to stay clear-minded.

"Neil-"

"Please ask me", Neil pleaded.

"I don't understa-"

"The question on your mind. The last one for now."

There was no question on his mind, just grey, sticky fog. But his mouth thought for its own.

"What is going to happen when we leave the pub?"

Again, silence, but not the empty, mindless silence from a few minutes ago, this one initiated somehow the end of a chapter.

"Hey guys, 'm done for today."

He looks around, desperate. All the seats are empty and most of the lights are shut down. The curtains are closing, the audience goes, booing and cursing because the protagonist doesn't win this round.

"Just a few seconds Toni, please."

"'m sorry boys, but I wanna go home now. You two should too, 's almost twelve."

Neil grabs him by the wrist.

"Come on now", he says gently.

"Neil-"

"Come."

Neil pulls him up to his feet, carefully pushing him towards the exit, hand warm on his shoulder blade and pays Toni, tips him eventually. He can't really see it, his vision has become blurry and he feels like his legs are not able to carry his weight anymore.

"He game?", Toni asks.

"Yes, don't worry, he hasn't felt especially good all day."

They are outside and the cold air feels like little blades against the bare skin on his arms and ankles.

"Tell me that I'm wrong, that this isn't the point where everything starts all over again."

Neil is all sudden far away behind a veil of tears.

"Don't do that."

"Do what? Do what?!"

"Don't make it harder for me."

"Making it harder for you? Neil, there has to be a way, please, we have being going through all this shit just to-"

He stops, not able to finish the sentence.

"One day maybe, but not this time." Neil brushes his fingers tenderly over his eyes to get rid of the tears.

"I won't forget you", he protests, grabbing Neil's arms.

Neil gives him a smile, although a sad one.

"Don't promise what you can't keep."

He sniffs angrily and Neil's smile becomes wider. "How does the loop start?"

"It starts and ends with me leaving." "

Then don't!"

"That is not the solution for this problem. If we let the delay the loop for one tiny second, it will gave the same effect as Saitor's pill. I will be gone, you, Kat and we will never find a way out. It's a hole in the time, we can't escape it for now. 

His grip on Neil gets tighter, so tight that he usually would be afraid to break them.

"Will I ever know you fully? Feel you?"

"In another version of this timeline. Be patient."

"I can't."

"You must."

"But please, before you go-"

"-yes?"

"You must tell me one thing. What is the last thing I say to you in every timeline?"

"Why."

"Why?"

"Because I am going to ask you to close your eyes."

He does as he is told, even though the darkness behind his eyelids was making him anxious.

"Do you trust me?"

"I have to."

"But do you trust me?"

"Yes."

He barely pronounces the last letter of the word as he feels lips against his'.

There is violence, raw, unyielding. But also tenderness, unwanted, longing. Neil's beard scraps against his chin and his body feels almost unbearable hot.

He needs more, god so much more, even though he knows that he will maybe never get it.

Neil's mouth burns on his' with the taste of alcohol and mint and a hint of goodbye.

* * *

His eyes are burning from the cold of the night and icy tears are running down his cheeks. He rubs his numb finger tips together, trying to get his blood started again through friction. It doesn't work.

They are closing the bar behind him. A man, maybe a little older than himself, but with twice as massive arms makes his way through the groups of tables and chairs and cuts off the lights.

The parking spot is empty, moonlight shines on the abandoned gaps and a spilled milkshake.

 _Pling_.

New message.

The screen of phone his hurts his eyes even more.

_New job for you. Kiew. Call me._

"Hey pal, you lookin' for someone?"

The owner of the pub stands directly behind him, locking the door. There is a fading heart tatoo on his upper arm, which frames the name _Jolie_.

It seems familiar. Crazy.

He has never been to this part of London before.

"I-"

A black BMW comes out of no where and passes them. The darkness and the speed of the car lets him catch merely a glimps of the driver's face.

Brownish hair, three-o'clock-shadow, costume made coat, blue eyes, oh so blue.

His lips were suddenly on fire and the taste of alcohol and mint filled his mouth.

Today has been a crazy day.

"-nevermind. Good night, Sir."


End file.
